


Discovering Fear (And Other Astronomical Data)

by Itar94



Series: Building Neutron Stars [7]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alpha Rodney McKay, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Building Neutron Stars: The John/Rodney Arc, Canonical Character Death, Hallucinations, M/M, McShep - Freeform, Omega John Sheppard, Original Character(s), Past Mpreg, Season/Series 03, Whump, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:53:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itar94/pseuds/Itar94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes exactly eight days and twenty-two hours before disaster strikes again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fifth story in the _John/Rodney Arc_ in the _Building Neutron Stars_ 'verse, preceded by [Following These Frayed Threads (Leading Somewhere)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/922950/chapters/1793169). Some of the events here are concurrent with [Then I Desired You](http://archiveofourown.org/works/940264) in the _Evan/Radek Arc_.

[ ](http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Building%20Neutron%20Stars:%20The%20John*s*Rodney%20Arc)

**Fear** /fɪə(r)/  
[noun - verb]  
 _an emotion experienced  
_ _in anticipation of danger or pain;  
_ _to be frightened;  
_ _the fire which causes hearts to burn_

* * *

It takes exactly eight days and twenty-two hours before disaster strikes again. Just enough time for the knots of tension to have begun resolving.

* * *

When they arrive at the planet over two dozen of the prisoners have reverted back to Wraith and sent out a distress call, and their own hijacked Wraith ship is no match against the full firepower of the enemy vessel approaching – it’s a wonder they can move forward at all, nevertheless opening up the hyperspace window necessary to get here.

The three marines meant to guard the doctor are dead. Fed upon. There’s no time to move the bodies, no time to salvage, _no time_ , because any second now the hive will arrive and leave nothing behind. Ronon grabs their dog tags, and John inwardly curses at having lost another three good men for such a needless cause.

If they hadn’t developed the retrovirus. If they hadn’t allied with the Wraith. If they hadn’t allowed the Wraith-turned-human prisoners to live. If they hadn’t –

* * *

They find Carson lying still and tied down and for a moment John fears the worst, but the omega has a steady pulse and there are no marks on his body that they can see. They get him to the jumper and he wakes up blearily, confused, muttering about the patients and conversion and Michael – and fuck, if it couldn’t get any worse, of course Michael is the one behind this. The one who planned it. The one who let some of them reverse. The one who was there from the beginning.

(They should’ve listened to Ronon and Teyla and all others who’d doubted. They should have stopped the experiment from ever occurring. They should have, _should have_. It was so stupid and foolish and naïve to think they could turn the Wraith into humans and have an easy happy ending, it was so _fucking dumb_.)

They take the jumper in the last minute, as the ship orbiting the planet is torn to pieces, and they can’t be sure if they managed to wipe out the camp successfully or if there were survivors which the enemy hive pick up. They have no choice but to cloak their jumper and wait for the Daedalus and hope.

* * *

Again (again and again) he’s loses another sleepless night over the thought, tossing and turning as he remembers pulling the trigger. He’s regretted a lot of things in life and this is just another knot added to the seams; John regrets that he missed that first time when he aimed his P90 toward the hybrid. If Michael had been killed then –

* * *

They send three empty caskets back to Earth.

Some days later, John finds Rodney in the nursery, showing Marie numbers and letters again but this time in unusual silence. The alpha is in deep thought, and the mates share a look and John shakes his head – _no change_ , is the silent exchange. This is his third inconspicuous visit to the infirmary this week and Carson is starting to get suspicious.

Carson hasn’t been the same, and the Scot’s distance affects them all. (It would’ve been his turn babysitting today but they don’t want to burden him anymore.) They’ve tried talking to him, but the doc blames himself and no words will instil peace in him. Nothing they do can convince him that it’s not his fault.

It’s a pity Cadman wasn’t on the Daedalus this time it arrived with new supplies. John emails Elizabeth, puts in a quiet request when no one else is looking because he’s certain she will understand. The bomb-expert has gotten close to Carson and she might be able cheer him up a bit. It’s not an ideal arrangement but perhaps it will work out, perhaps, maybe.

* * *

No one attacks Atlantis for a day, a week, a hundred hours.

For the moment perhaps they are safe.

* * *

It’s just like any other day in Pegasus (that is, filled with constant unpredictability) when word reaches them from the SGC that the Odyssey, along with SG-1, is on course for Atlantis on a mission of their own. John’s read enough reports to know about the Ori and he’s glad they can help out, even in the slightest way.

Still, a ship from Earth and back – there’s a risk, no matter how small, that the IOA will make some decision then or that someone else back at Command will; that there’ll be a recall, a sudden order of withdrawal, another evaluation, that time’s up - and John can’t sleep the night before the ship arrives.

What if … _what if._

* * *

There are no recalls, no threats.

The premiere Earth gate team are beamed down to the control room and they look around in obvious awe. There are really just two people that John has met before, even if shortly, and that is Colonel Carter and Dr Jackson. Back on Earth he has seen Colonel Mitchell once or twice, but that was it, and they’ve never spoken. The alpha’s poise is strong and confident. Meanwhile, Jackson’s eyes gleam as he looks around, much the same as the woman, Vala, holding his arm except she’s oozing with impatience.

Mitchell steps forward to greet them and acknowledges Elizabeth while he glances sideways, and John meets his nod quietly, answering the unsaid statement of _So you really are omega._ Briefly he wonders if the man would react differently, if there’d be comments involved, if John hadn’t left Marie back in the lab with Rodney.

“Atlantis truly is amazing,” Jackson breathes, and Vala asks if they can’t go on a sightseeing trip first.

“Unfortunately the SGC demanded you begin your mission as soon as possible,” Elizabeth cuts in, her voice firm but a bit apologetic, because who wouldn’t be mesmerized by the Ancient city?

“Let us continue in the conference room.”

* * *

Only, his plan to keep Marie away from prying eyes is ruined as Rodney comes to the conference room half an hour later, complaining loudly and gripping a datapad in his left hand, a five-month-old girl resting on his right arm. John raises an eyebrow (even if he’s also personally relieved because he longs to be near his daughter every second of every day). Hadn’t they arranged with one of the nurses, conveniently also named Marie, to look after her during the meeting hours?

Although it’s typical Rodney to come straight to him when the girl starts crying. At the moment, Marie is fussing quietly and making signs that John’s learned to read clearly by now, but Rodney’s still fumbling a bit with baby-language (physics is so much more clear and understandable.)

John shifts in his chair and sighs, aware of the bemused, puzzled looks they’re gaining, of how some of the company are hiding knowing smiles and how others are merely baffled, like they hadn’t already known of the baby.

“Did you drop her again?”

“What? No! And that one time was just an _accident_ , she, she leapt out of my arms, I swear I –” Rodney clears his throat, realizing that some in the audience have begun smirking at the frantic admission, and the alpha would’ve crossed his arms had they been free. “Just. She wouldn’t stop screaming, I was getting deaf, I swear, and Radek muttered something about having to kick me out of my own office which is _ridiculous_ really -”

“Okay, okay, easy. I think we get the picture,” John cuts in before Elizabeth has a chance to admonish the scientist.

When she’s in his arms Marie goes quieter, a lot more content at once, albeit she greedily seeks to be fed. John glances at Elizabeth who nods, wordlessly, and he’s relieved because while he’s omega and it’s entirely _normal_ , he sure as hell doesn’t want to nurse his daughter right in front of these strangers. Plus, Mitchell doesn’t quite seem to get it until John stands, excusing himself – trusting Rodney to fill him in on the details as soon as he return – and then the alpha makes an awkward sort of noise, eyes widening. Then Colonel Carter diplomatically begins discussing the mission, drawing attention swiftly away from the omega as he exits the room.

* * *

When he returns Rodney is standing up in front of a screen fille with data, waving his arms animatedly as he speaks about shifting wormholes and supergates and energy requirements loud enough for the whole neighbourhood to hear. The audience looks a bit exasperated and pained but they endure because McKay has the brains they need for this operation to work.

As things have been explained and conclusions made (some of which John had guessed the outcome of even before the meeting started), Elizabeth turns to him, inquiring. “John, do you think you could spare Rodney from your team for a while?”

“Oh, no problem,” he responds and flickers a grin at the alpha’s expression when he adds, “just don’t destroy any solar systems, McKay.”

* * *

“I got to say, Sheppard,” Mitchell says as they step outside the conference room, “you’ve got a pretty nice base here.” His tone is easy and impressed and John figures that the alpha is just trying to avoid looking directly at Marie, who’s resting against the omega’s hip.

“Yeah. We just painted.”

Though maybe Mitchell isn’t that bad after all, John realizes, as the man quirks a grin and says that _We’ll keep an eye on McKay (he’ll be returned in one piece)_ , at which the omega replies without blinking, _You’d better (I’d hate having to hunt you down and shoot you)._  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _A/N: I've been gone for awhile due to personal reasons but am working on getting back on track. Also I'm in the middle of revising this whole series and checking it for errors and stuff. Edits are mostly minor and won't affect plot, but they're necessary since I haven't got a beta reader so I'm finding errors and can't keep my paws away being the perfectionist I am. Anyway. Please enjoy. The really good stuff is yet to come. I've got ideas for this 'verse for all SGA seasons and then some._

Five days later, Rodney is returned to the city whole and sound, after activating a supergate and destroying an Ori warship by shredding a Wraith hive to pieces. Even Samantha Carter seems impressed by the feat ( _Well, it was a group effort,_ McKay hesitantly adds because all he did was just tweak a few calculations and prep a couple of warheads and Carter deserves some of the credit too; really, the admission has nothing to do with the annoyed looks being sent his way by Colonel Mitchell as the man mutters something about _arrogant asses_ ).

Meanwhile John has been busy making sure he’s had a city to return to, but thankfully the last few days have been rather calm, without any signs of attacking enemies – a very welcome reprieve. But Elizabeth has been a bit distraught ever since Dr Jackson realized that the assumed holographic woman in the holoroom was in fact an ascended who broke the Ancient rules of non-interference, and now they’ve just lost a great source of information and fascination. (John is really getting tired of this ascended business. All those rules. What’s the point of ascension if you can’t _help_ people?)

When the SG-1 team finally packs their bags and heads home, John doesn’t admit it aloud but he’s glad to have them go. It’s nothing personal but they’re strangers to him, and a far too close reminder of Earth and all of its protocols. When the Odyssey leaves Lantea once and for all, John can finally exhale and relax (and prepare for whenever the next great mishap may occur. This is Pegasus, after all.)

* * *

Apparently during his side-mission with the SG-1 team, Rodney has come up with – well, Colonel Carter has, the alpha begrudgingly admits causing everyone within hearing range to smirk – the idea of an intergalactic bridge of gates between the Milky Way and Pegasus, as a means of saving power and time.

It’s a good idea and Elizabeth gives them a go to begin harvesting gates, but still, John is uneasy about bringing Earth any closer than it already is.

* * *

They keep searching for traces of Michael, of the hive that came to the aid of the prisoners on M8G-352, but come up blank every time. Maybe, maybe, he is dead, along with all the others they tried to make human – but they cannot be sure.

Carson still won’t talk about what happened there; the details have been put down into reports that are safely stored away, the words within them are distant and clinical. The man himself won’t speak and they cannot force him, so they wait and hope for him to recover. The Scot has insisted for them to drop the matter and move on, but they can’t miss the darkening of his eyes, the _guilt_ remaining etched to the man’s soul.

* * *

The evening that vaguely coordinates with Earth’s New Year is filled with heady laughter and Athosian wine, with civilians and marines and aliens mixing wildly, and hands are held and embraces exchanged, in quiet dark corners where no one else sees. It’s one of those few moments where everyone has a few hours off. It’s the first time they’ve had time left over to celebrate the new year even if they’ve been in Pegasus for two. At the moment no one is shooting at them.

John and Rodney slip away to have some privacy around midnight and no one asks.

Earth is a lifetime away.

* * *

It takes them four weeks to find equally as many Stargates in orbit around uninhabited planets that they decide to use, and the Daedalus transports them one by one into position in accordance to Rodney’s calculations.

As the fifth gate is found and moved to its new location, John comes down with the common cold and Rodney thinks they should seize this chance at doing something else but going on a possibly deadly mission. Take a couple of days off, the whole team; spend some quality family time or whatever, do something besides shooting aliens.

Naturally Ronon disagrees with a grunt and he and Teyla work out in the gym, and Rodney mutters about their ridiculous behaviour while chewing on a sandwich. John is just amused. He’s content staying on Atlantis lazing about for a while without official duties, having full focus on his daughter and watching his mate work on some private, top secret (because it involves alien tech) project that could easily win Rodney a couple of Nobels if SGC ever got declassified.

Such times are rare and precious.

* * *

A few days later, one of the offworld teams report having found an inhabited planet not described within the database. They cannot take the gate just like that nor can they leave without investigating – maybe they could find something to trade. Atlantis is always in need of food and other basics.

So Major Lorne’s team is sent back, since Rodney is busy with overlooking the repairs of one of the jumpers (something about misplaced crystals) and John’s cold still hasn’t let go of its frosty grip of him, and the omega figures there’s no point in assembling his team right now.

Besides he relishes the opportunity to spend time with his daughter – Marie has started rolling onto her stomach and John wouldn’t miss her first time sitting up on her own for the world.

* * *

Then Lorne returns to base with a man calling himself Lucius and things start going to hell.

* * *

John locks the doors to his and Rodney’s quarters, one of the few places untouched by the madhouse that Atlantis is starting to become. Just thinking about Lucius makes him shudder. Everyone is clinging to the man and praising him and letting themselves be touched – oh god, he saw Carson just an hour ago _fawning_ over that man and John needs to find a solution before … before anyone is forced into something they don’t want. Before it’s too late.

“There’s got to be a cure or something, maybe there’s an answer back on the planet,” Rodney says frantically. He clings to a datapad, one he’d managed to snatch from his lab before John had forcibly dragged him out of there, to get away from everyone.

“Yeah. I need you to stay here with Marie and figure out some way to deliver a cure while I go back –”

“I’m not staying in this nuthouse!”

“Rodney,” John says sharply. “You saw how they’re acting. What if – if one of the omegas were to go into heat right now … Hell, it might not even matter because they’re high anyway! We can’t let that happen.”

Rodney goes pale - _he wouldn’t, fuck, oh god, he_ would, _the bastard -_ and then nods jerkily and accepts the girl being transferred to his arms. “I’ll. Stay put. And be careful! Who knows what else could be waiting on that crazy planet!”

* * *

When he arrives at Lucius’ village, the inhabitants are pale and gloomy and obviously going through some kind of withdrawal. Their eyes are tired and misty but John is pretty sure that once the truth is out, that the man has drugged them for months and years, the sadness swiftly will be replaced with fury.

They hand him a half-full vial and John stores the orange liquid in his TAC vest. Once he gets back to Atlantis, he and Rodney can isolate Carson, have him fix a cure and everything will work out. It has to work out.

* * *

Ronon _shot_ _him_.

Stunned him, but still. His teammate would never do such a thing if he were in his right mind. He or Teyla or Rodney would never surround him armed to the teeth and aim in his direction without hesitation.

John brims with anger. Not at Ronon or any other person of the expedition, but at Lucius, that damned man who has turned his friends against him and pushed away Rodney from him so that his mate doesn’t seem to look at him with proper recognition – he hasn’t even gotten to check on his daughter for the past few hours and he can only hope that Rodney still has enough sense to look after her. John’s fury is directed solely at the man who has dared to force all of these people into this. The man who currently is peering at him through the bars with hungry eyes.

Another shudder works its way through John’s body. If not for the force-field around the cell …

If he had his side-arm there wouldn’t be much left of the man right now.

“You’ll come around, Sheppard,” the man says and smiles and John wants to punch his face in. “I have a feeling we’re going to be really close, you and I.”

He hopes that Carson has had enough time. That it will work. If time runs out and Lucius opens this cell and infects him with that drug, or perhaps has him held down anyway – John pushes the thought away shakily. _No_.

* * *

Once that everything has been resolved and the cure distributed and Lucius shipped off the base forever, a thousand threats hanging over the man’s shoulders, people avoid looking into each other’s eyes for some time.

Rodney won’t look directly at him either, and that’s what bothers John the most. Rodney is embarrassed and ashamed and John _does_ forgive him for acting so weird, he does – he was fucking _drugged_ _against his will_ , out of his control - even if the memories hurt, but the alpha has to talk to him too. They can’t go around in silence forever.

His team too are distanced from him. Teyla is the first to approach, to apologize, and shame burns in her face and her hands; but she never pulled the trigger on him (for which John is immensely thankful because a P90 has no stun option).

He pretends not to notice how Ronon doesn’t twirl his ray gun around as much as before, like a constant reminder – because John needs his team to accept what’s happened and move on, and if he keeps being stiff and uncomfortable in their presence then they will never let the incident go.

It’s not been some easy few days for anyone.

(The reports going back to SGC will surely be … interesting.)

* * *

“Look, I’m sorry, John. I never thought that… Well, to be honest, at the time I didn’t really have the capacity to think in any sort of logical manner at all. I didn’t think. I was an idiot.”

Rodney’s starting to babble now and a bit awkwardly John lays a hand on his arm. “I get it. It’s okay. What’s done is done. At least you managed to keep Marie away from the chaos and had her fed and everything.”

The alpha isn’t very reassured. “I let him lock you up. I let him take over the base. I let him _threaten you_. If he’d – if he’d touched you then I wouldn’t even had _protested_! What fucking kind of mate am I if I just let him _do that_?!”

“But,” John cuts in, “we got a cure out in time. Things didn’t…didn’t go that far. It’s okay now, Rodney. It’s okay.”

They’ve been through worse and always survived.

* * *

But the shadow of guilt reminds him too much of the disaster on Dorana and its aftermath half a lifetime ago. So when Rodney has to glance at him every five minutes and touch his shoulder and ask _Are you really all right?_ , John allows it (sometimes he does the same).

* * *

It takes a while, but as the hours turn to days things start going back to normal.

Once confident that he still has the trust of his mate and his team, Rodney starts yelling at the scientists again for being idiots and John trains with the marines in the gym like nothing’s happened and Ronon stops hesitating before drawing his gun, and things are okay.

They continue harvesting gates and exploring undiscovered worlds. Then they unknowingly stumble upon a planet which Ronon visited as a Runner over five years ago. It’s bound to happen sooner or later but it’s unplanned, and the terrified villagers cannot be convinced that the Satedan no longer is a Runner, that he won’t bring the Wraith onto them.

Instead the villagers bring the Wraith onto themselves.

As John falls by the tranquilizing dart, his team scattered around him on the dry leaves, he can only hope that Rodney made it through the gate even while pierced by an arrow.


	3. Chapter 3

It fucking _hurts. Nothing_ has ever been this painful, not getting stunned or shot by a bullet – okay, that also hurts as hell and probably bleeds a lot more but, oh god, he’s got an arrow in his _ass_! This just isn’t fair! Why the hell do these things happen to him?!

His leg has started to numb away and, fucking god, they were just attacked by yet another moronic bunch of crazies armed with arrows and he’s been _shot_ and John’s been taken captive –

“Rodney! Rodney, where are the others?” Elizabeth asks worriedly as she kneels beside him on the gate room floor, medics quickly coming up to help. The alpha’s jaw is a little sore from hitting it as he fell the moment he came through the event horizon.

“The villagers! They, they shot me, and took John and Teyla and Ronon hostage!” He has to get up. Get back there. They don’t leave people behind. They don’t leave people behind. “We’ve got to get back there!”

John will never forgive him if he leaves them to rot.

* * *

Sateda is ashes and dust and rotten corpses, and there are echoing shadows of lost dreams hidden between the concrete buildings. One can almost still hear the gunfire and the cries of the last fighters as the darts had advanced upon the city, the cries of the dying, and no words can possibly be enough to console. It’s a world of could-have-beens, of bitter memories causing bile to rise in his throat.

Ronon refuses to come with them without killing all the Wraith first. There’s a fire in his eyes, cold and dangerous and he won’t hesitate if they step into his way – so John orders them not to. Rodney is less than pleased, naturally, as they crisscross the ruined city shooting down Wraith after Wraith as the hive above slowly orbits the planet. But it as to be done like this. Ronon craves his revenge.

* * *

To their surprise and shock, it’s Carson who pulls the trigger. And for a moment John fears that Ronon will hold true to his threat and wring the gentle doctor’s neck even as he saved the man’s life - but once they’ve gotten to the jumper, leaving the corpse of the Wraith leader behind, the Satedan steps up and embraces Carson tightly, shuddering.  
“Thank you. _Thank you_.”

* * *

The ride home in the Daedalus is quiet and grateful and the team gathers in the mess, complete for the first time in too many days. Even if Ronon is unusually subdued, he does manage to smile a bit.

He’s not a Runner anymore and John promises, or at least as close as he can come to it, that the Satedan never have to be one ever again. It’s just words but it’s got to mean something.

* * *

When Marie is six months old they send a MALP to M7R-227 out of curiousity since the Ancient database is annoyingly vague about anything on that particular planet. A half-finished experiment, suddenly abandoned, a possible weapon against the Wraith; it sounds promising even if also dangerous. It could be a failure. A huge risk. A gamble. It could also be nothing at all. Perhaps only ruins will be waiting for them.

( _Doranda, Arcturus, disaster,_ echoes in John’s head, the memory forever bitter.)

There are no ruins, but a prosperous people, a city hailing them from afar and welcoming them – not quite with open arms, but as close as they’ll get in Pegasus, so they gear up and head through the gate unusually hopeful.

* * *

Days later (once they’ve survived – again) John regrets that they didn’t just send an a-bomb all at once to save them so much trouble. Or better yet, erase that planet from their databanks and make sure to never have anything to do with it again.

But first they find themselves on a copy of Atlantis, only much larger and full of humanlike machines that carry no scent, forced into a cell so eerily like those they have back home in the detention area with no means of getting out.

* * *

“This is. Oh my god. This is very, very bad.”

Rodney has already told them this only a hundred times or so. But John barely hears him.

He can’t get the pictures out of his head.

It had been so real. He’d felt the pain and the burning of his heart and his rapid pulse as he’d held Rodney a final time and whispered useless goodbyes to their daughter before he’d pushed them through Atlantis’ gate. His throat had been dry and sore and his muscles slow to obey as he’d shouted Go! Go! - as he’d forced them back to Earth without a second chance for regrets or embraces.

And then (with Rodney’s pleads still ringing in his ears, _Don’t do this John! Don’t you fucking dare! John!)_ he remembers rushing to the controls and entering the enabling code for the self-destruct as the Wraith gunfire poured down over the city like rain, endlessly –  
He can’t get it out of his head.

Instead of listening to Rodney’s rants or Elizabeth’s heated debate, he curls up in a corner of the cell and tries to still his staggering heartbeat and convince himself that it wasn’t real, that it was just a vision Oberoth planted to mess with his mind. That in reality he’s alive and Atlantis floats tranquil on the surface of Lantea without being attacked; that Rodney’s here with him and they don’t have to part; that Marie is _safe_ –

* * *

(What if it’s still happening?)

* * *

Ascending replicators is just a piece of bullshit.

They’re _machines._ They can’t transform themselves into thinking beings of pure energy like the Ancients, there’s no fucking way that could work because they’re a bunch of programmed nanites, not humans with souls and they cannot feel emotion in any proper sense of the word or anything else of that mumbo-jumbo necessary to be able to _release their burden_ or whatever and evolve.

But Rodney doesn’t say this into the Replicators’ faces (he doesn’t want a hand stuck in his head again).

* * *

Rodney remembers seeing himself from far-away and yet being in the same body, and he should’ve figured it out something was wrong then, in that very moment, but he didn’t.

He remembers being cold and alone and Atlantis sinking.

He remembers John being furious and disappointed and eerily silent as he’d turned away, away from Rodney and the city and Pegasus and everything they’d ever shared. He remembers losing his soul slowly, a Wraith’s hand slammed onto his chest as John was forced to watch.

He remembers pain for hour after hour, but not his own and he couldn’t do anything but watch and plead.

He remembers –

(All of it with a hand forced into his forehead.)

* * *

John looks around the cell confused. “But – we escaped.” _And then the world fell down,_ but he doesn’t mention that last part, doesn’t want to process it, doesn’t want to touch the far too vivid memory. If the others saw that too … if they know …

“That is not what I remember,” Teyla murmurs, tone flaring, not with her usual calm, as she kneads her neck. She is tense and dark-eyed and looks as jagged around the edges as the rest of them by the experience.

“All I remember is being in a dark room, fighting hand-to-hand for hours,” Ronon says quietly. “McKay?”

Rodney doesn’t want to tell them. Isn’t sure if he can. “I - you know. Torture - too painful and, and intimate to recount.”

Elizabeth doesn’t speak, but maybe she too imagined (dreamed? believed?) that Atlantis was sinking, that their home crumbled, that all was lost. Maybe she too was tricked into loneliness.

Like her, John won’t share any details; and Rodney is both horrified and concerned and relieved, because silence isn’t good (or some psychobabble like that), silence can mean a hundred disastrous things. But he’s not sure if he can handle any more apocalypses right now.

* * *

None of it was real, the logical part of Rodney’s brain knows this, but he cannot feel entirely sure, like he’s trying to kid himself.

Now they’re headed toward Atlantis in this flying copy of the city, meant to wipe it out of existence for – what? Revenge? Some petty plot from yet another set of bad guys? Maybe they’re just bored and want to blow something up.

To be honest Rodney doesn’t care for the whys or hows. They’ve got to stop them, somehow, in any way possible _\- they have to._

(Marie is probably sleeping by now, it’s far past her bedtime and they should’ve been back by now and whispered silly stories to lull her into dreams, not have that Major who doesn’t know the difference between a meson and boson babysitting her again. And Rodney nearly forgets how to breathe as the images forms in his head, of the little girl never waking up again.)

* * *

Then they are released from the cell, no replicator seeming especially concerned about them wandering about. Apparently they’ve amusing enough to keep around for study. As much as he hates being some sort of social fucking studies guinea-pig, at least he’s not dead, and being alive means he can do something to sort out this mess and stop the replicators. Somehow.

He just needs an idea. An epiphany. An opportunity.

Then Niam looks directly at him with metallic eyes and says, “There is only one hindrance in our reaching for ascension: the commands that our creators wrote into us. We want you to rewrite our base code. You can do this, Dr McKay.”

* * *

Rodney isn’t an idiot. He can do so much more than just remove some aggressive directives.

* * *

“Also,” Rodney adds, once he’s explained to the team what the plan is (sort of), “I have added a glitch that will, on my command, momentarily freeze them.”

Momentarily?” John asks, frowning at the vagueness. Rodney being vague could either mean something brilliant or something very dangerous; or also mean that the alpha has no clue and tries to hide it (but luckily the last one is rare). “How long’s that?”

“Well, I don’t know. Until they figure out how to override it. That’s why I said momentarily!”

“But is it days, hours, minutes?”

“I don’t – well, it’s going to be minutes.”

“How many minutes? Ten, twenty?”

“How should I know!?” At the look his mate sends him, the alpha sighs, spreading his hands in a wide riled gesture. _“Fine._ Seven minutes. Seven minutes and thirty-one seconds. You happy now?”

“No!” Rodney really wants to stomp his foot at the whine. “I wanted a bigger number.”

“Look, it was an arbitrary number. It could’ve been shorter –”

“Or longer!”

In the background Elizabeth clears her throat and okay, things are going a bit overboard, but they bicker in hallways all the time also when captured by the enemy and Rodney’s blood pressure has started to rise rapidly so he’s started not caring.

John relents, eventually, and Rodney lets out a huff and wonders if maybe the condom broke that last night they had a moment for themselves, which is why the omega is behaving this way. Not that he usually isn’t. Fuck, could he be...? Oh, wonderful. Better check with Carson once they get the hell out of this mess.

The omega sighs exasperatedly. “Just get us out of here.”

* * *

They really should’ve shot Niam when they had the chance or left him to be incinerated along with the fake city in the upper atmosphere above Lantea.

* * *

The ride home in the stolen jumper is quiet but they’re all thinking the same thing. They managed to escape, for now, but it was too easy.

The Replicator homeworld is still full of self-building dangerous machines and they could easily create a ZPM-powered armada of warships and come after them. If that happens, what chances would they hope to have? Even with the chair and the shield, Atlantis couldn’t last a day against a direct attack by such a foe.

It’s bad enough that they have to keep an eye up for the Wraith.

* * *

The sky remains empty and tranquil, and the sensors indicate nothing. But it’s a hell lot like the vision (faked nightmare? mind probe?) that the replicators made him believe, wherein the enemy had shown up without warning, so John hangs around the control room for hours without excuse. He just needs to see for himself. That it’s real, they’re back home and safe, and no crazy machines are after them.

Maybe, hopefully, they’ve put them off by destroying their fake Atlantis. Maybe, hopefully, that has made the replicators think the Lanteans are just too much of a bother to care.

* * *

“Oh thank god, there you are, I’ve been looking all-over for you. Why the hell aren’t you carrying your radio, idiot? Obviously first I thought you were in the gym or the mess but you weren’t there or in the nursery either and I –”

John looks up when the familiar voice enters the room, followed by a flurry of movement and clattering noise of feet, and there’s a soft whine from the cradle. “Shh! You’re going to wake her, McKay.”

Usually the alpha would make a comment and keep babbling quietly and look sheepish, but now he stands in the doorway unusually pale and rigid and John wonders what the hell has happened now. Only Rodney would rush around the city looking for him at this hour in such frenzy, but the man isn’t tugging at his arm.

The omega is already reaching for his sidearm and coming up with plans, orders resting on his tongue, ready to assemble strike teams and solve impossible equations if necessary. “What’s wrong?”

There are no alarms going off, no voice on the city-wide comm, just – silence. The Wraith cannot be attacking them. There’d be a lot more screaming and gunfire involved if that was the case.

“It’s Elizabeth,” Rodney says, voice sharp and John draws a hissing breath. “Carson has her in the infirmary right now.”

* * *

Two days after their return to the real Atlantis, Elizabeth falls into coma, her head full of nanites.  
  
When John breaks into the isolation chamber and grasps her arms and just _focuses_ on saving her, Rodney is yelling frantically in the background, and Carson is cursing and people rush in trying to separate them – they manage, eventually, but John hopes that she received his message and won over the tiny machines trying to make her give up.  
“ _John!_ What the _hell_ do you think you’re –”

* * *

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

“You are such a reckless stupid self-sacrificing suicidal _idiot_. If we weren’t in a galaxy far, far away making job interviews so bloody difficult I’d call in babysitters for you,” Rodney mutters as Carson keeps stabbing John with needles and it’s all a little over the top and too vicious in the omega’s opinion. “Ronon’s such a bad influence on you. No, let me rephrase that: mostly _everyone_ is a bad influence you, since this place is wacko. And _you’re_ a bad influence, too, on everyone else.”

“Including or excluding a certain brilliant scientist?” John asks, eyebrow raised at the paradoxical statement. “Elizabeth is recovering now, and you’re welcome.”

But the alpha hasn’t reached the end of his rant yet, not by a long shot. “You’re by far the most stubborn omega I’ve ever met so it doesn’t really surprise me you’re slow on taking on your mate’s behaviour – which is to eat properly, not get shot, not touch stupid alien machines, not come near citrus, not try to sacrifice yourself every five minutes in crazy acts of heroism –”

“Oh yeah, that’s a pity.”

Rodney _almost_ whines and sends the doctor a helpless look. “Carson, can any of your voodoo cure sarcasm? Or at least wipe that grin off his stupid face.”

If he hadn’t known the alpha so well the Scot wouldn’t have understood the _relief_ hidden in those riled words.


	4. Chapter 4

They have harvested nine gates for the galactic bridge when the call for aid turns out to be an ambush.

Another should-have-shouldn’t-have, another of a hundred piling up around them; they should never had been so quick to trust the Genii, no matter their leader, after all that they’d done. They shouldn’t have answered. Shouldn’t have fallen for the simple trick (but how could they not have answered to the plead for help?)

Their attackers are only specks of dark green in-between the trees, brief glimpses of barrel-ends and military uniforms, and the underbrush is heavy making it difficult to see; as they retreat ducking under the bullets they have little time for conclusions.

John is three feet from the shimmering surface of the event horizon when abruptly something latches onto his TAC vest and he’s flung backwards, tumbling forcefully to the ground, winded and blinded for a moment. He hears footsteps crossing the dry grass over the rushing noise of the Stargate dying, before something dark shields his vision.

* * *

Rodney tumbles through the gate with gunshots still ringing in his ears and turn around quickly expecting John to come through any moment now, just a second more, but after Ronon crosses the event horizon the gate closes down with a cold whoosh.

“Wait - where’s John?”

The tall Satedan looks as surprised as he, furious and worried. That wasn’t an emergency, an ally needing their help. That was an ambush.

“He had my six. He was right there,” Ronon says, darkly, glaring at the empty Stargate as if it could bring answers.

* * *

When they return to M27-9N5 there are no traces left in the dry grass and the sun is rapidly setting because of the planet’s thirteen hour long rhythm of day and night.

There is nothing, _nothing_ , and they retrieve nearly fifty gate addresses from the planet’s DHD but by the time they’ve had the time to analyze them all it will have been weeks because they don’t have the resources to search every one of those planets. Not to mention chances are they’ve dialled more than once, making it statistically impossible to follow the captors.

If he could, if it would help them find John and bring him back home, Rodney would blow up another solar system.

* * *

He doesn’t come along nicely, naturally. As they move to gag him and tie him down, he twists out of their grasp trying to copy that clever move Teyla’s taught him, but there are eight heavily armed alphas surrounding him and he hasn’t got his gun, so all John gets out of that attempt is a forceful kick in the ribs and a bruised jaw.

They remove his blindfold three gate trips later. He hasn’t caught a glimpse of sky or stars, no gate addresses, and no names are muttered in the background that he can pick up; his captors aren’t that stupid then, good enough thinkers to not feed him any useful information. Even if they appear to be grunts that won’t stop commenting on his scent. When they realize he’s omega - which is at once, when he’s held down and one of them breathes heavily down his neck - there’s surprise and confusion and that sort of sharp delight John has encountered far too many times in the past, both on Earth back when he still had no knowledge of wormhole travel and in Pegasus when stepping through the gate with his team to unexplored worlds, many of which sadly also filled with prejudices.

And he reacts at once as one of the alphas tries to shove a rough hand between his thighs, managing to elbow him in the gut harshly and the man wasn’t expecting that, judging by the foul things leaving his mouth. John really hopes that faint crack meant he broke something.

He gets a shiner for that. But at least the man doesn’t try again, and they’re in a hurry and all so they pack up and haul him to his feet, heading for the gate, no more hands reaching out to grope him - he fights back wilfully as they drag him toward the naquadah circle. If he could delay them for a just a moment more, maybe that’d give Atlantis time to send backup -

But no special ops team arrives in time, and then he’s blinded and led through a wormhole, once, twice, thrice.

* * *

Once they finally (for a bit he thinks his captors must be more frustrated than he at this point, because John makes no good, obedient prisoner) make it to whatever the destination is, John finds himself bound to a chair in some dark underground bunker that reeks of sweat and ammunition, of deceit and lies.

Acastus Kolya looks at him with a pleased smile. “This is even better than I’d hoped,” the man says, sounding weirdly amused, but last time they came face to face - _fuck I should’ve shot him_ \- before the siege of Atlantis, John had still been in hiding, and while the new leadership of the Genii is aware he’s omega, Kolya mightn’t have heard that through his contacts; contacts he must have to have enabled this plan and set up that ambush. They were lured to that planet by people using an IDC given to Ladon Radim, after all.

“I must say, I didn’t actually believe the rumours that the military leader of Atlantis was omega. I’ve never met one before able to kill over sixty men in cold blood.”

He chooses not to comment on the remark, to not spur him on, because this fucker doesn’t deserve to know that his ability to kick ass isn’t affected by what’s between his legs, other than if John manages to get free and shoot the man. _Then_ he’ll know for sure and John swears that it’ll happen in the near future.

“So, what’s the deal now?” John asks instead, now that they’ve been kind enough to ungag him, albeit momentarily, and he manages to sound laidback and at ease and not like he’s being held at gunpoint. “This kidnap-for-demand thing is starting to get old. You want some more C4? A couple of ’jumpers?”

The man only smiles that creepy way that makes John want to kick his teeth in.

* * *

Before the bastardized version of a fifties’ film camera starts recording, they gag him again, and the nearest guard clamps a meaty hand down on his shoulder, gun pointed at his head to make sure he makes no sudden moves.

In a way, it’s rather a relief not having any pictures received in return from Atlantis, only voices over the radio because hearing Rodney shouting his name in panic and worry and Elizabeth’s steeled concerns are bad enough.

_“John! Oh my god, what have you done to him?!”_

Rodney’s voice is thin and distorted coming through the small radio in Kolya’s hand.

“Nothing whatsoever, Dr McKay.” _Yet._ There’s always _yet,_ always that fear, always that possibility.

 _“Let me talk to him,"_ Rodney demands rapidly and, god, John knows what is to follow; he’s going to get tortured until Kolya’s demands are fulfilled and then perhaps some more for pure leisure, and Rodney and the others are going to have to watch and his mate would be more broken than he. Rodney isn’t made of steel and he isn’t a soldier and he’s probably half-way across the galaxy, unable to do anything right now but stand and stare at a screen; and for a moment John wonders how many people are gathered around the computer where this message is being shown right now.

“Be my guest.” Kolya turns a little, waiting, and even if he can’t see a thing of what’s going on on the other side the omega can easily imagine how Rodney is rolling his eyes, aggravated and furious and concerned. His voice is akin ice breaking as he speaks up, and he can transmit a hundred emotions with his words even if the radio transmission makes everything tinny and vague and ruined.

_“Let me rephrase that: I want him to be able to talk to us.”_

He could yell feverish words that would be useless to get him out of here or give Rodney comfort, he could lay claim on his love and say goodbye if they never got the chance to see each other again. He could say something fucking useless but necessary to make Rodney understand but his mate would never give up on him, never let him go, and they must be out there searching for him already because he knows his team and Elizabeth would never leave anyone behind. So instead as soon as the gag is torn from his face he looks at the camera and yells, without hesitation, “Whatever he asks, don’t do it!”

_Don’t give in. Because I won’t._

He barely manages to finish the last few words, the guards rushing forward to with as little gentleness as possible tie him back up and Kolya chuckles dryly in the camera while John picks up a distant growl that has to be Ronon in the background and Rodney shouting, which isn’t helping the least.

As opposed to the relentless anger, brimming so clearly that John can easily picture each of his teammates’ faces, Elizabeth is calm and collected as always, but there’s an edge to her tone like that of a knife. “What are your demands?”

* * *

They ask for more time, for deliberation, seeking refusal. But there is none that Kolya will give.

From his position he can’t see the door opening but he hears the sound of creaking metal and clinkering chains against a cold stone floor and impatient mutters of guards, and footsteps slowly dragged forward as if the person making them was starving and crossing the room is the greatest of efforts. Then something tall and black and white flickers in the corner of his eyes, a pale hand covered by a thin sheen of metal; a pair of wild catlike eyes, gleaming in the gloom, staring at him through wild grey tresses.

They start freeing the Wraith’s restraints.

John’s heart thunders heavily against his ribcage.

 _“No! He doesn’t deserve this, you - you bastard! He doesn’t deserve it! No I won’t calm down -”_ There is a brief faint shuffle, the alpha must be pushing someone off him, perhaps Teyla as she attempts to reach out to calm him. _“Don’t do this!”_

Oh god, if he could just shut out the voices. Shut out Rodney’s screams, Elizabeth’s relentless pleads, Kolya’s cold repeats of demands. If he could just shut it out -  
The Wraith’s hand flickers as it is released and John can’t bring himself to look away from it, from the creature’s face it leans in to take it’s fill after this fraction of hesitation as if knowing that they’re both prisoners and both probably going to die in the end.

And then there’s pain like someone flicking his guts out and crushing his lungs, streaks of blood and sky and dreams being painted on the floor as it’s all ripped out of him, a stream of endlessness, of memory, of years and future. And he thinks about Marie, his little girl, and Rodney and their kiss this morning and stupid mistakes made and whispers of forgiveness; he thinks of planets being destroyed in their wake and flying jumpers and that silly little dream to grow old together and not die in a nuclear explosion. And he remembers being lonely in the Sanctuary week after week after month; he remembers with unprecedented clarity how he’d started losing heart and sanity and how he’d curled up on himself as the cage around him began shrinking.

He remembers the pain of labour, unmatched by any wound he’s carried before or after, and that had been different and terrible but that had brought something good and wonderful out of it; this brings nothing, nothing, there is no beauty at the end of the tunnel, no little candlelight or bright supernova or whatever, there is no tunnel, just this void that he’s been pushed into without nothing to grasp, pushed over a brim that is rapidly disappearing and he’s _falling -_

(When a Wraith feeds, do they take more than years? Can they rip out pieces of you soul as well? When a Wraith feeds, can they claim more than -)

The hand leaves his chest as suddenly as it had attacked and he’s slammed back from the black pit and straight back to his spine. He would’ve lurched forward if not for the guards holding him in place.

* * *

_“You have three hours.”_

There is no time for deliberation, for them to seek refusal.

They should just hand Radim over now, now, please, _are you fucking insane why aren’t we just handing him over?!_ \- Rodney nearly goes on his knees, but for some reason Elizabeth won’t just give into Kolya’s demands because of politics or something that Rodney feels they have no time for. Had someone else suggested that, like Colonel Caldwell, Rodney might have actually punched them. Now he can’t do that to Elizabeth, even Ronon won’t do that, even if Lorne has to put a restraining hand on the large alpha’s shoulder to calm him down.

But how on earth can Elizabeth fucking hesitate when John is being -

_“Three hours.”_

* * *

_Fuck, I really should’ve shot that bastard._

John shudders as he draws himself up leaning against the wall, tiredly, feel ragged and drained and there’s a bleeding wound on his chest, at the centre, raw and open. They’d thrown him onto the cell floor carelessly like a limbless doll, and he’s pretty sure he bruised his left side in that fall.

If he hadn’t let Kolya live that day, then he wouldn’t be in this hell right now. He’d be back in the city with his family or out kicking some Wraith ass or something useful.

 _.... I’ve never met one before able to kill over sixty men in cold blood,_ Kolya had said.

Maybe he was too weak and compassionate and really too much of a good guy, really; maybe it’s true what they’ve always said, maybe it’s right they don’t usually admit omegas in the military because it’s not in their nature, after all. Because it’s not in the nature of omegas to kill, is it, is it? It’s not right, they’re weak, they’re not solider material, they’re better off elsewhere. Maybe hadn’t he been omega he could’ve been able to shoot Kolya’s head back when he’d ambushed them on the Brotherhood’s planet, so long ago; maybe, maybe - but _I’ve never met one before able to kill over sixty men in cold blood,_ Kolya had said and the words keep twisting knots in his head, he can’t get them out. It’s not bothered him before. Not like this, but the walls around him are cold and empty and he’s never liked cages. _Never met one able to kill in cold blood._

But if he hadn’t, Atlantis would’ve fallen into Genii hands, Rodney and Elizabeth would've died, the city would’ve been swallowed by the ocean. If he hadn’t, he’d had lost it all - he had to protect his home, his people. If he hadn’t ruined all of those futures, he wouldn’t have had one of his own.

And it wasn’t the first time and won’t be the last _(it definitely won’t be the last)_ and that, John supposes (an afterthought) is what makes him so odd and unfit because what kind of omega would so freely admit that they can quench so many lives so easily, without hesitation, without fear - what kind of omega and good mother would do such a thing?

Do such a thing and still be unable to put a bullet in that bastard’s head. Still have overlooked that chance and let him live. Still have taken pity. Still had that moment of weakness, of heart, of compassion.

 _Yeah, John,_ he tells himself, _and look how that worked out._

* * *

The cell next to his isn’t empty, but it’s too gloomy for him to see another face.

“How long have you been down here?”

“... It no longer matters, John Sheppard. There is no escape.”

“That long, huh.”

But.

“When did you hear my name?”

There is a rattle of chains and the yellow lamplight casts odd long shadows on the face appearing between the bars. John reels back horrified and he can feel the pressure of the hand over his chest, slowly suffocating him.

The Wraith stares right back at him with dangerous eyes.

“Right before I started to feed.”

* * *

The next time, he’s more prepared even if one can never fully be, and he manages to shut out Rodney’s shouts. Mostly because someone back in the city must be trying to wrench his mate away from the video feeds and radios, trying to shut him out of the process and John is a mix of angry and relieved because he doesn’t want Rodney’s last sight of him to be of a slowly withering body, of a sunken face and greyened eyes - but he doesn’t want Rodney to leave all the same. Doesn’t want to be alone.

All he is now is alone.

* * *

“My people will come for me. Then - we could both get out.”

“There is no escape,” the Wraith answers tiredly. “There is no hope to flee.”

“Well I’m not giving up," John snarls, even if there isn’t as much force in the words as he’d have liked, his limbs too heavy. “We never leave people behind.”

_We never leave people behind._

* * *

It’s over slower each time, or perhaps he’s just imagining it, just like he could be imagining that slight hesitation as he Wraith glances at him right before he starts to feed, like he’s considering that useless conversation in the cells earlier, as if he maybe believes if only for a second that together they can escape this wretched place -

Then his hopes start dying as the hand descends.

* * *

“If,” he wheezes out (unsure how many hours later), once he’s managed to catch his breath, pulling himself up to peer through the bars at the other prisoner. “If we worked together, we could get out. We could escape. What’ve we got to lose?”

If it fails they’ll separate them and they’ll never get a second chance. If it fails Kolya might just shoot the Wraith and find some other way to torture him in front of the recorder and John shudders, thinking about that possibility; even if his body is well over a decade older now, worn and sagged like some tree that’s been cut down and left to rot, even then Kolya might take perverse pleasure in forcing him to suffer letting the men touch him, having his mate and family watch them plunder and destroy him, and John would die before he let that happen.

If it fails they may both end up dead, but it’s better than just sitting around waiting for the inevitable.

_What’ve got to lose?_

He still has all of his memories burning in his mind and he’s lucid and he can still walk - soon, in another three hours, he might not be able to do that. Soon he’ll not be able to stand on his own. Soon his daughter will have lost a father.

* * *

The guards fall down almost too easily, but they never expect the two prisoners to coordinate any form of attack, nevertheless _together._

There’s a sickening thud as he buries the knife in the nearest man’s chest and John tries not to listen as the Wraith drinks his fill from the only survivor. Two bullets makes gaping holes in his side but John cuts down the man firing before the Wraith dies and part of him can’t believe that he’s just saved a Wraith, one that’s sapped life out of him. The wounds keep bleeding but the Wraith just nods sharply (in thanks? understanding?), shrugging it off, before they grab weapons and a radio from the corpses.

The Wraith gestures at one of the dimly lit hallways. “This way.”

* * *

The security is lousy because Kolya doesn’t have a lot of manpower, running a secret base without his government’s authority or prior knowledge; and because he probably never expected this kind of development. At the moment it’s a blessing. With only a rustic Genii gun that doesn’t hold much to a P90 and a badly injured Wraith on his side, John holds little hope if they have to fight more than four men at a time.

They don’t speak, and for a long while the only sounds are shuffling footsteps echoing down the halls as they run through the maze of corridors, from one shadow to another, and their ragged breaths, bodies near collapsing, and John feels the adrenaline starting to wear off already.

His chest aches, both internally and externally.

* * *

The sky opens up then above them, wide and dark, dotted with stars aligned in ways that John can’t recognize albeit there, far-off, is a clear streak which may be the centre of the galaxy. Three moons circle overhead lazily. The crisp air is untouched by pollution and cities and so eerily quiet, so clear, so fresh after twenty-four hours’ imprisonment.

As the hatch is closed the Wraith falls onto his back, breathing raggedly and then it smiles, in relief, a hint of pure joy, a recognition of freedom and seeing it makes John a bit uncomfortable because suddenly, suddenly the Wraith isn’t just a mindless killer, not just an alien not worthy of a name.

“Ah! It was worth it, if only to see the stars again.”

One of those stars could be Atlantis.

“Well, I’ve got higher expectations than that,” the omega says, checking the gun - it’s out of ammo and was rather useless anyway, and he chucks it aside. “Come on, let’s head for the gate while we still got the cover of darkness.”

* * *

Only, the Wraith has no idea where the Stargate is, and they walk in circles for hours and hours as the sky begins to glow. And the gate is by then heavily guarded so they probably wouldn’t have made it in any case. With no guns they can’t take the enemy out in a crossfire.

After five hours’ search in vain, John curls up under a tree, exhausted and hungry and cold, and he’s never wished to hold his daughter as much as in that moment, when his body starts to numb away, the sun slowly rising over the hills.

She shouldn’t have to remember him like this, losing him like this, a corpse never found on a planet without designation.

Rodney shouldn’t have to remember him like this.

* * *

He hears but cannot see the men dying, the gunshots, the suddenly cut-off screams.

A shadow falls over him, and the Wraith’s hand is inches from his chest. He’s too weak to do anything, cannot raise his arm, cannot fight back. But he won’t plead for mercy.

“Finish it!”

But the Wraith doesn’t.

“There is much about Wraith that you do not know, John Sheppard.”

Before, his insides had been ripped out and torn apart and his pulse started to drop like in a free-fall; before, everything had descended, darkness spreading like a veil, the pain opening up like a sheet.

Now suddenly it’s all being stitched up again, old scars mending, and force is being pumped back into him relentlessly, fragmented pieces of Wraith and Genii and himself being put back together and poured into his blood and breath and he can’t hold off the scream of shock and surprise and _life_ filling him. For a moment he can almost glimpse the Wraith beyond that cold merciless feeding hand; there is a mass of thoughts, of thousands of years and memories and anger and regret and hunger, _hunger_ , and then he’s being restored, energy filling his limbs like an inferno. His lungs, previously crushed into pitiful bloody masses are filled with oxygen and he can breathe and the pain is like a tsunami, one powerful wave that then levels out - he’s pulled back from the pit -

“Get away from him!”

Rodney.

_Rodney!_

The hand is wrenched off his chest and he sees the sky clearly, daylight filling the glade. And he’s sore but not tired, not hungry, not old and weak and pathetic anymore, as he jumps to his feet as he hears the familiar click of a ray gun.

“No! Wait! Don’t shoot!”

Ronon freezes, his gun pointed at the Wraith’s head, and the marines pouring into the clearing come to a halt, weapons up and loaded, and Rodney - Rodney is there, staring wide-eyed, jaw dropped dumbly.

“Don’t shoot,” John repeats.

“What, are you crazy?!” Rodney cries, fists clenching his P90 his knuckles whiten as he steps up to his mate's site never taking his eyes off him. “It’s a Wraith! It’s trying to kill you!”

“One that just helped me escape,” the omega puts in and then turns to Ronon, gesturing at his gun. “That thing set to stun?”

The Wraith probably expects to die - there is no surprise on his face as John turns toward him and pulls the trigger, only a brief staggering anger and then acceptance before he crumbles. John hands back the Satedan his gun while Ronon stares at him quietly, perplexed, and Rodney starts fussing, patting all-over the omega’s back and arms and chest checking for wounds and generally just making sure that he’s real.

“It’s okay,” John gasps, “I’m okay.”

And it’s (for a moment, he hopes, he believes, he holds onto that it is) true.

* * *

 _The Gift of Life,_ the Wraith says before they part, _is reserved only for our most devoted followers - and our brothers._


	5. Chapter 5

_Next time we meet?_

_All bets are off._

He can’t ever remember walking away from a Wraith before without being chased down by a stunner. It’s kind of refreshing.

* * *

All scars have been erased, and his body virile and strong again like a blank canvas. For the first couple of days he isn't sure if he can trusts his muscles.

That faint soreness that he'd felt from time to time all since the birth, like a ghost, is now all gone; just like that age-old reminder of that horse riding accident when he was fourteen and stupidly lucky, along with every single trace of all the battles in Pegasus. The oldest of them, the one on his neck from the Iratus bug, is no longer visible to the naked eye, albeit he can still trace it with his fingertips, remembering where the cruel white lines used to be. Now there is only healthy unbroken skin.

There is nothing left to tell that he’d been shot down that time in Afghanistan, that sharp piece of shrapnel slicing into his thigh (he remembers, remembers vividly the sand and the hot wind and the pain and Holland dying, head in his lap). No traces. It’s eerie and in a way, it’s like he’s lost something important. It’s not just a relief. It is, in a way, like he’s been ripped out and placed in a new body, in a stranger’s skin, with a stranger’s heartbeat.

The only scars he carry now are in his heart - and a faint line down across his chest, one that has healed but will never go away.

He tries not looking at it in the mirror but he can still feel the pressure of a hand, and still feel himself being ripped apart and forced together over and over and over, like a rag doll, a child’s toy someone has abandoned in an alleyway for the rain to tear at.

For the first couple of nights, he can’t sleep, afraid to dream.

He hesitates to nurse Marie when irrationally fearing that somehow she’ll get a taste of dead Genii and Wraith and taint, and he goes down to talk with Carson when Rodney is unaware because he doesn’t want the alpha to worry any more than he already does - it’s not easy to get out of his sight, the way Rodney’s been clinging to him like a leech the past few days. It’s an illogical fear without basis, without proof, but it calms him to hear it from Carson nonetheless. But still, having to open his shirt to feed her he unintentionally bares that horrible scar and he doesn’t want her to ever see that. Doesn’t want Rodney to ever see it either. Doesn’t want anyone to ever see it.

Scars are testaments of bravery and mistakes and foolish things. Scars should be remnants of saving people’s lives and doing good and not - not having your life sucked out of you, slowly, slowly, each drop carefully collected and then spat back out.

* * *

Just a week later, he goes into heat with more abruptness and fierceness than he’s ever had before, maybe because of all this new strength that has filled his body.

It’s almost like he’s twenty-seven years old again and hiding in a cellar behind locked doors, the heat incessant and unforgiving and had he felt clearheaded enough to think in proper lines he might have taken more pity on Rodney as the alpha mutters about insatiability, but John just tugs him down for more; and the lights in the room go haywire for a bit but neither of them notices.

* * *

Beckett forbids him from going offworld for the next two weeks and John thinks he might go mad because he is filled with pent-up energy and has too few outlets. He runs laps and spars with Ronon and even, once, tries meditating with Teyla but that goes over just as well as one might expect. Rodney has started complaining and John isn’t even stealing coffee from his lab.

* * *

It takes some unrelenting argument before the doctor admits that he’s perfectly okay, to be honest in a better condition than before and he hasn’t showed any signs of sudden trauma or seizures all since he got back, so he clears him for active duty _finally._

John means to celebrate by going with his team to the colourful Belkan market and bring Marie along, making it a family outing, suggesting that Teyla bring some Athosian friend if she wants to, like Kanaan (everybody wonders how long their courting process is going to be) and Ronon can please himself showing off to the locals or something (he likes doing that), and Rodney can browse through the market stalls with his adjusted life-signs detector looking for energy signatures indicating Ancient trinkets, while complaining about the lack of proper coffee beans to purchase. Yes, a lazy afternoon when they can show a corner of Pegasus to their miracle girl.

Of course, Elizabeth calls him and Rodney to her office right then and all plans are thrown out of the window.

* * *

“What is it?”

“Major Leonard’s team hasn’t checked in yet and they are six hours overdue, and we can’t send any radio signal to them,” Elizabeth says, frowning worriedly. “I want you to assemble a team and check it out, and take Beckett with you as well, just in case. Hopefully they have just found something interesting and forgotten to check in,” she adds and that is just dangerously wistful thinking, and no one comments on it.

* * *

M1B-129 is eerily quiet and still, the woods seemingly void of life. The trees are tall and looming, and underbrush thick, and from somewhere in there there are strange energy readings, one that Rodney can’t make any sense of. A foreboding feeling settles in John’s chest, but he can’t make sense of that either - not until something flickers in-between the trees, and sudden gunfire rains over them. He knows that gunfire, he knows it too well and a tight knot contracts in his gut as he realizes.

“Wraith!” Ronon shouts fiercely, firing into the woods relentlessly and the fire is returned, short intense bursts that aren’t Wraith stunners. No. That’s automatic gunfire and John knows that sound; only their own carry weapons of that sort and there’s no way the Wraith -

“Ronon, stop! That’s no Wraith!” John shouts, but the attacker has already turned and Ronon stares after the retreating form, sweat pearling on his forehead, eyes flickering like he was being followed by Wraith again, like he’s on the verge of running.

Leonard, seemingly not recognizing them, flees out of sight and hearing range while John cries after him to stand down. He doesn’t look back.

* * *

Then they find the bodies.

This shouldn’t be happening. This shouldn’t be fucking _happening_. Major Leonard should never have had a reason to mercilessly prop his whole team full of bullets and then flee, and John brims with fury, with confusion because _how the hell_ could this happen? How could they turn on each other like this? How could any of their own perform this massacre?

The anger, hot beneath his skin, is replaced by iciness as they reach the gate and dial Atlantis only to have the DHD explode on them, wounding two men and killing another; John feels his ears pop by the shockwave as he’s thrown to the ground, sprawled out as he lands painfully on his side. For a moment he can’t think properly, every thought a mess; _what - who - the gate -_

“Oh my god,” Rodney’s repeating over and over, staring in horror at the ruined DHD, at the broken crystals spilling out of it followed by a trail of pitiful dark smoke. Following his mate’s gaze, John looks at the remnants of the explosion and remembers another, so many years ago, the downed chopper outside of Kabul, the inevitable end, the desert swallowing them up -

Quickly he blinks the vision away and staggers to his feet.

“There’s no way to fix this. We’re stuck.” Rodney’s voice is frantic. “Oh my god, we’re _stuck_.”

Carson has already rushed over to the nearest injured man, Lieutenant Kagan, who’s bleeding his guts out on the forest floor; Teyla kneels beside him urging him to be still while the doctor hastily finds some bandages in his packs and tries patching him up, but it could be to no use because it’s too bad, they have no time and they are all in shock, adrenaline ruling their systems. Ronon peers into the woods with a dark frown, ray gun at the ready, flinching at every little sound, and Rodney certainly isn’t calmed by that.

Coming to his mate’s side, John puts a hand on his arm, squeezing. “We need to find shelter. Calm down, Rodney. Elizabeth will send backup in a couple of hours, we just have to be patient and wait.”

Just be patient and wait - the one thing none of them are really good at.

“How on earth can I be calm and patient when the DHD just _exploded_ and people have killed themselves and Major Leonard is out there on a craze?! Huh - _huh_?!”

Fuck, John doesn’t know, how the hell should he know! And he hates how he can’t reassure his lover or the others or himself, because there is no way of knowing how long they might be trapped here, how many hours will pass before Atlantis dials in. If they _can_ dial in now that the DHD’s been blown to charred fragments. They may have to wait for the Daedalus to come and pick them up, and that will add hours they might not have. Kagan will have died by then, and Lieutenant Barroso is already pale and shaking, a bullet having torn open his arm.

They’ve already lost six men today without facing a single enemy.

They are their own enemy now.

* * *

He’s fired at one of his own men before. He had aimed at Ford, when the young man had aimed at him, eyes dark and wild, hands trembling. But John had been ready to shot, even if his heart had staggered, even if he had pleaded - even if the man in the end had thrown himself into a Dart’s culling beam, John had been ready to fire, even if he hadn’t been ready to kill Ford. Now there are no Wraith on the planet, there is nobody except them and that strange machine that Rodney concludes is the reason all of those good men died for absolutely nothing, _nothing,_ like waste.

He killed Sumner. He’s killed before.

He should be able to do it again. But Leonard is a victim too, he’s out there hallucinating they are the enemy and if Rodney can shut down the machine then hopefully they can find him and calm him down and bring him back home.

(Then what? The man has killed his own team, thinking them to be the danger - he’s going to be a fucking wreck and if they bring him back, he might never want or be allowed back on duty and he’ll be sent back to Earth, and they’ll lose another good man all for nothing, nothing, like waste.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are references in this chapter to the backstory/interlude [Aurora]().

No. No, this doesn’t make sense, this doesn’t -

\- why is Holland there, lying there calling out his name, like he knew, like he wasn’t -

Unforgiving desert wind coats his face and hands, he can feel grains of sand under his feet but it can’t make sense of it - Holland’s dead, he knows it, he _knows_ it, his legs crushed under the wreck of the chopper, the explosion. Fuck, _the explosion -_

“John! Colonel! Listen to me,” Holland says, sternly (what’s wrong with his voice? what’s going on?), gasping in pain, “We need to get back to the bunker where Rodney and Carson are. That is the only safe place to be, and I am in need for medical attention. I cannot chase after Ronon in my condition.”

Rodney. What bunker? Carson. Unrecognizable names. Ronon - chase? Why would they be chasing anybody, it was a resupply mission and the chopper, fuck, the chopper’s down and John disobeyed orders going after them, after Holland and Dex and Mitch. But, Holland insists, they must leave. The bunker, Holland insists, they have to go back to it. To safety. To Carson and Rodney.

 _Rodney? ._.. and he thinks of warmth and safety and confessions, he thinks of admissions he can't remember daring to make in the past -

\- the past -

Holland. Fuck, he’s bleeding out and dying and John can’t do anything this time either, can just sit around and wait while he’s useless at comforting and Holland slowly slips away, breaths antagonized and broken.

“Lyle,” he whispers, confused and fearful, god, the man isn’t meant to be there, he knows where they spread the alpha’s ashes, there’s nothing left of him - but what if that was some kind of dream, an illusion? What if he just imagined him dying and the freezing nights hiding from the sun and the Taliban and clinging to those fucking dog tags like they could bring hollow comfort? God, Holland’s alive, he’s wounded but _alive,_ he’s -

Holland looks confused at him at the name, like it’s not his. “John? John, listen, you are hallucinating. It is me, Teyla.”

Teyla ...

The explosion. The chopper. The gate. The gate! The machine, the long chords hooked up to the old dangerous piece of technology, voices frantically explaining what it does. The machine, and people running off, shooting back at them. Hallucinations - the desert, the desert -

“It ... we’ve got to get out of here. It's not safe.” But where, _where?_ He can’t tell what’s east and west, can’t recognize the sky, there are trees where there should be sand dunes; and Holland is talking to him in a voice that isn’t his, never was his - what the fuck is going on? _What the hell is -_

* * *

Gunfire clashes behind him, but it’s unlike any gunfire he’s heard, it makes no sense because the Taliban could never have a gun that spews red light and - “Ronon!” Holland cries out at the attacker, who is nearing them with a feral look in his face, and John lifts his gun but Lyle reaches out, grabbing his wrist, stopping him. Grabbing his wrist. He’d grabbed his wrist back then and told him fragmented pieces, coughing blood, _It’s no use, Shep - you’ve got to get out of here - you’ve always been a lucky bastard - don’t stop flying._

Now Holland holds onto his wrist and says, shaking, the bullet wound on his leg raw to see, “Listen to me, you are friends, not enemies! Please, Ronon! It’s us - your team! John, do not fire!”

She makes him hesitate, to not pull the trigger.

But the man doesn’t stop advancing and John hauls Lyle to his feet, taking his weight as much as possible and halts then, briefly when remembering that his leg isn’t hurting and last time he’d tried carrying Lyle (through the sand, down to the road, too many miles away) the shrapnel shredding his thigh had made it impossible. Now his leg doesn’t hurt and he manages to drag them out of firing range, tumbling behind a tall dune or is it a large gnarled tree root? - nothing makes sense - landing harshly on his bruised side. At the impact of landing Holland cries out with pain, and John nearly doubles over as well, clutching his abdomen, but there’s no wound there - there _should_ be no wound there.

“What the hell is going on, Lyle?” John demands because he has a right to fucking know but the alpha just stares back at him in confusion. He glances around, at the broken shelter, remembering cold desert nights cradling a corpse to his chest. The wind is off now, too mild to belong in the desert, and smells he cannot place is assaulting him from all sides. This doesn’t make sense. It’s like trying to forge two wholly different pictures into one. “This isn’t - this isn’t how it happened!”

“This isn’t how _what_ happened?”

“How you died!”

And not-Lyle looks at him then with wide pained eyes, there’s pity and understanding there and why the hell is all of this happening again? Why is he reliving some false twisted memory?

He never wanted to go back to Afghanistan.

“John, you are hallucinating. I am not Lyle. I am Teyla Emmagan, your teammate and your friend. Do you remember? We came here to help Major Leonard and became trapped here when the DHD exploded, and there is a machine ...” Here the alpha sags, hissing sharply because of pain, clenching the awkwardly bandaged leg wound. “There is a machine that makes you see things that are no real.”

 _... explosion._ “The chopper,” John mutters angrily, guilt and fury etching at his insides like poisonous claws - if they hadn’t flown that day, if they hadn’t taken that route, if he had convinced Holland not to go, if he’d followed from the start - “You got shot down, we got fucking shot down, and you bled out outside Kabul trying to make me fucking _leave you_!”

Never leave anyone behind.

“John,” Lyle says, softly, “what you see is not the truth.”

It looks all fucking real enough to him and John fists his gun, breathing raggedly. What the hell is wrong with the world? Why’s he seeing all of this now? He’d made himself push away the memories as far as he could, forget about the pain and honour Lyle’s memory and, god, god, this can’t be happening allover again.

If he can’t trust what he sees or feels, then there’s _nothing_ he can trust.

“Please,” Lyle - no, Teyla, Teyla says, “trust me.”

“If I’m hallucinating,” he murmurs, “then - are _you_ real?” If he raised his gun and pulled the trigger ...

But if it is real. If it is someone there other than a shadow. If it _is_ Holland ...

“Yes, but you see me as another. You must have perceived Ronon falsely as well.”

Ronon. Vaguely, like he’s heard it mentioned in passing before - Ronon. Dex. _No._ Dex is dead, a heap of broken bones; fuck, Dex is dead, and Mitch and Holland - bile rises in John’s throat and he has to look away from Lyle’s face.

God, he wants it all to _stop._

* * *

Not-Lyle truly is injured, her leg covered in blood, a bullet put there by a man apparently under his command (his command since when?) but John isn’t sure what she means. Who is the enemy? Where is the enemy? What is this cruel place?

Teyla cannot provide good enough answers, and it’s difficult to keep control of reality. She still carries Lyle’s face and she claims they are in the middle of a forest, but all John can see is desert, desert for miles and miles and the unforgiving sun beating down on them, and the hint of a yellow horizon far-off.

Sometimes he hears the whine of engines, spluttering and weak, echoes in the silence after the explosion and he looks to his left seeking the downed chopper. It’s still there, in useless fragments, and he can spot two figures sprawled out in the roughly cut open belly, the bodies utterly still and white just like that time. Just like that time.

“Colonel,” not-Lyle says, and he’s not a Colonel, he’s a Captain - how and when the hell did he get promoted? didn’t they want to demote him? - “we need to get back to the bunker with the machine, where Rodney and Carson are. Carson can help, he’s a doctor.”

A sudden chord is struck within him: a memory, a piece of something important and he curses when he can’t grasp what it is.

Rodney.

“Rodney. Who’s Rodney?”

_Important. important. important._

“You do not remember?” not-Lyle asks concernedly, wincing with pain. They need medicine and shelter, but how is John meant to find anything here when apparently all he sees is a lie? How could he possibly navigate through a world that isn’t real? “Rodney is on our team. He is your lifemate.”

Lifemate. No. No, that can’t be, he isn’t mated, no one even knows that he’s omega for fuck’s sake so how -

_\- mated -_

\- when? how? when did he reveal it, who did he tell, how many knows? how can he be a Colonel if they know? _why -_

Through the haze he begins to realize that he’s hyperventilating.

“John! Calm down. Breathe. Panic will not help you or anyone.”

“ _Liar_!” he snarls, backing away from Holland, gun raised. “You’re right, this is all a hallucination and you’re part of it, Lyle. You’re dead. You died in my arms. You’re dead and I’m not mated and none of this if fucking real - you know! I told you! You _know_!”

It has to be a lie, there is no other way. There is no other fucking way.

* * *

The machine is going to overload. Suddenly Rodney is certain of this even though he cannot pinpoint why and, god, what’s going on here, when did the simple backup mission become this _fucked up_?

He can’t properly focus when knowing Carson is treating a dying man in the same room, that there is a corpse resting underneath a blanket just twelve feet away and that his mate is out there running after a maniac and Ronon’s gone crazy too - god, they shouldn’t be here!

But the machine. He’s got to fix it and shut it off, right, right, but the overload...

“Carson,” he says and when there’s no immediate response Rodney turns around, yelling, “Carson! We’ve got to leave!”

“What? Why? We can’t, I’ve got patients to treat that are far too fragile to be moved."”

“The machine’s going to blow, I think. No, I know, I’m sure of it and if we don’t get the hell out of here we’re going to get vaporized!”

Carson pales even more - he’s been pale all the time they’ve been here. “Gods. I’m going to need your help to carry Lieutenant Kagan.”

* * *

 _Trust me,_ not-Lyle says, pleading: trust me. Trust me.

She’s dying and if he doesn’t trust her she’ll die and he’ll be lost forever here and she says that Ronon isn’t in his right mind, that he’s a danger to them now, that Ronon could kill them even if they’re friends, a team that he cannot bring up any clear recollections of.

Whenever something moves in the distance, all he can see are the Taliban and AK-47s aimed their way - not real, not real, Teyla insists.

Then, half-way to the cave (but he sees no cave, only how the sun has moved to its zenith and how their footsteps have made a long trail in the red sand behind them) they are intercepted by a man wearing grey uniform. For a moment, at least, John thinks he’s wearing a grey uniform with a strange patch on his shoulder but then there’s a Taliban in his place and he’s holding a fragment grenade in his right hand, ready to pop at any moment.

“Major Leonard!” Teyla cries, recognizing him.

“Don’t step any closer!” the man yells madly, swaying unsteadily, blood smeared across his face. He taps his earpiece but no one listens, no one responds as he cries into it frantically: “I’ve got four Kull warriors on me! I need backup _now_! Prometheus!” and none of it makes sense.

Not-Lyle refuses to step down, stubbornly. Stubbornly. God, Lyle had been stubborn, stubborn, it’s such a dangerous trait but that stubbornness had ensured John had survived that crash, that he’d held on - “We are not the enemy. We are your friends, Major.”

“I said, don’t get any closer!”

John barely listens, tugging Holland away - they need to get away. They need to get away _now._ The man’s hand nears the pin of the grenade and there is a look of pure terror on his face, of fear and conviction and anger and guilt and John wonders who the hell he is, if it’s all part of the hallucination as well, if the man is seeing the wrong things too -

“Major! _Don’t_ -”

It’s too late; they are standing just twenty feet away and John pushes them both back and down, tries getting out of the way but they’re not entirely outside the blast radius. The sky flickers for a moment, shrapnel flying everywhere and dirt and dust swirling in the air and there’s the sharp smell of burned ammo and flesh. Instinctively he’d rolled over, face pressed against the ground (too soft to be sand, even if it looks like it), but something wet and warm is spreading over his back and through him and it doesn’t register clearly. He tastes tangy blood on his tongue, it’s a bit difficult to breathe. The TAC vest should’ve stopped -

\- but his side, he realizes, his side’s open and there was a bruise there earlier that he doesn’t remember receiving (but the crash - the crash - it has to have been the crash) but now it’s a wound, fragments of metal tearing at its edges, and not-Lyle is lying beside him now pale and still. For a moment he can just lie there and stare at him, at Holland dying for a second time.

Then not-Lyle jerks and opens her eyes blearily, and John remembers how to breathe again. Slowly he pulls himself up to stand even if it feels like somebody's cut him open. They can’t stay here if more Taliban arrive, if ... Not Taliban; _friends, not the enemy,_ Teyla had said: _the hallucinations._ The bunker. They’ve got to find this bunker, shelter, help, the machine.

“Lyle? How’re you holding up, buddy?”

No shrapnel seems to have hit Teyla, it’s only the leg wound bothering her but right now John isn’t sure how far he could support her.

“I am fine,” she says even if she looks far from it and he doesn’t raise protests, just hauls her right arm over his shoulders and they start walking again, painfully slowly, toward the horizon which she claims to be a clearing not an oasis.

* * *

They’re gathered just in the mouth of the cave when two figures approaches, haltingly, and Rodney’s heart threatens to leap into his throat and clog there permanently. There is a makeshift bandage around Teyla’s left thigh and John, oh god, he’s covered in dust and red and he’s pale and wide-eyed, he’s a complete mess and Rodney wants to yell at him for have being so stupid again to run off after maniacs.

At seeing him and Carson, the omega freezes up and Teyla murmurs something quietly but John stands there uncertain and quiet, hand on his gun.

“John!” Rodney cries out, stepping forward but then the omega raises the P90 in his direction.

“You’re - you’re part of the hallucinations too,” John says suspiciously and _what the fuck_ has he been seeing? “You’ve got to be.”

“That is Rodney," Teyla says, tiredly, reaching out to lower the omega’s weapon. “Trust him.”

“Lyle, you know I don’t trust the Taliban,” is the sharp retort. What the hell? Rodney can’t make sense of any of this. “He can’t be what you say he is.”

“Look,” Rodney cuts in, “I don’t know what you think is going on, but I really am Dr Rodney McKay and I’m a Canadian astrophysicist, not a Taliban. How do you possibly confuse the two? How can you _not_ recognize me?! I’m your mate for heaven’s sake, don’t aim at me - I’m your _lover,_ John!” This if anything seems to make it worse, John shudders and goes pale and steps back, finger resting on the trigger, and he looks so confused and shocked and openly _frightened_ \- Rodney has never seen that expression on his face before. “Oh god, you’re hysterical. Just, just, put down the gun, John.”

But at least he knows it is his John, so easily caught up on very small details, when the man’s frown deepens, a trickle of sweat running down his brow. “Canadian astrophysicist?” Like that’s even vaguely important when he’s holding a gun and has blood coating his front and is swaying on his feet.

“He knows how to shut down the machine. Please, lower your weapon, Colonel. Please. Rodney,” Teyla shudders, close to passing out, “have you finished shutting down the machine?”

The machine. The overload. They can’t go back in there! And John is still clinging to the P90 like a personal shield and no word has been said about Ronon yet, god, he could be dead for all they know and Rodney glances over his shoulder at the opening to the bunker worriedly - the overload...

“Rodney!”

“No, I -”

“You _must_ shut it off!”

* * *

They’re yelling at each other while Lyle shouldn’t have strength enough left to breathe but he’s so fucking stubborn and John finds the world blurring at the edges, unaware why suddenly everything is taller and lighter and tilted at an odd angle. Then everything darkens and there’s a hum at the back of his neck that suddenly vanishes like static he’s not even noticed until now and the desert disappears.

Abruptly he remembers his daughter and everything starts falling into place, like the remnants of an explosion picking itself back together, playing in reverse.

_\- the explosion -_

\- the DHD. Explosion. Rodney. Teyla, bullets cutting through the air, Ronon running after shadows, gods where is everybody, are they even _alive?_  And he remembers Leonard turning himself to shreds, the bodies scattered in the clearing, Rodney screaming his name - he remembers suddenly, the mission, the failure, the machine, the dying men, the explosion and Rodney screaming his name -

* * *

Next time he opens his eyes, briefly, he’s on the Daedalus, certain of this because of the tight grey ceiling staring back at him and the medics swarming around, and he helplessly tries to find Teyla and Ronon and Rodney but they’re all out of sight and no one call tell him if they’re okay before he passes out again.


End file.
